Early Blacks, so called because they can be harvested earlier than the other types, before the first frost.

Nowadays, New England is eclipsed in sheer bogpower by Wisconsin, which provides more than half thecountry’s berries. Still, Massachusetts hangs in at num-ber two, growing about a quarter of last year’s crop, worthabout $100 million. One Bay Stater who carries on the tra-dition is Mark Herndon, whose small company maintainsnine bogs in Kingston, Massachusetts. Since 1980, he andhis family have wrested these board-flat, well-ditched, andhighly productive fields from a former pine and mixed hard-wood forest, using a bulldozer to remove root balls, a graderto level the planting areas, and an excavator to dig irriga-tion ponds. With sprayer heads spread across the fields, theplants — which form a dense mat by sending out runnersthat sprout upright fruit-bearing stems — are assured ofsufficient water during the growing season. Circling and in

once the berries are dislodged from their stems and rise to the
surface of the flooded bogs, they are corralled by floating booms
(above left) with help from rake-wielding workers (above
right) before being sucked up by conveyor belt onto a truck.